


we have arrived too late to play the bleeding heart show

by kkeut (xiyings)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 04:14:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2255526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiyings/pseuds/kkeut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love, to Baekhyun, is a soap bubble; elusive and transient, fleeting, glittering with impossibilities, and rising higher out of his reach with every attempt at a grasp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we have arrived too late to play the bleeding heart show

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to a for being lovely and e for being helpful and amazing and l and e/m for keeping me company while i wrote. title taken from the bleeding heart show by the new pornographers.
> 
> written for falaciesoffate over at perfectedart@lj

It starts with a fall. It starts with a clumsy collision of lips and teeth one night after Jongin's first recital. It starts because Baekhyun is lonely and cold and confined and Jongin is always warm, so warm. It starts with a fall, and Baekhyun sometimes likes to think that it ended with one too. 

❀

"Baek, wake up!" Jongin whispers, giving Baekhyun a gentle nudge to the back. Baekhyun grunts in Jongin's general direction, stirring slightly but not quite entering the mortal world. Baekhyun feels lips against his neck, featherlight and fleeting. His body flushes with heat as Jongin's lips inch closer to a sensitive spot. Right near the jugular. He wishes that one day someone would bite down and puncture it. Baekhyun isn't very tired anymore. In a quick twitch of his body, he's staring down at the confused, vaguely sleepy face of Kim Jongin, legs too long under Baekhyun's shorter body.

"Good morning to you too." Jongin glares up at Baekhyun, his lips quivering slightly with a hint of a smile. Baekhyun presses him further against the mattress and peppers his forehead with kisses. "Baekhyun," Jongin says, voice shaking with laughter, "you're going to be late for work". The butterflies in Baekhyun's stomach turn into wasps.

“Do I really have to go?”, he says, coating his voice with fake adoration and clinging onto Jongin’s bare arm. 

Jongin shakes Baekhyun off and sticks his tongue out in response. He pushes himself up off of the bed and turns to leave the room. He turns to look at Baekhyun at the last second. “Don’t forget about my recital tonight, and get there early, you know how fast Seongnam fills up on Friday nights.”

❀

Baekhyun’s office is small and cramped, and the windows don’t let in any light. There is no central air-conditioning. Seoul is hot, and Baekhyun feels like he’s boiling from the inside out. He runs a hand through sweaty hair and walks to the water cooler. 

Jongdae’s prodigal art student equipped with a chisel of a jaw line appears in Baekhyun’s peripheral as he sips. Baekhyun feels his stomach churn. 

“Hey Byun, how are the accounts looking?” Jongdae is too cheerful, as usual. Baekhyun feels like cracking his stupid prize-winning sculpture of a face in half with his fist, as usual.

“Oh you know, plunging. There’s no business in books anymore Jongdae, haven’t you heard? Kindles are where profits are, these days.”

Jongdae grins, simultaneously cherubic and catlike. “Have a little faith in people, there’s nothing quite like a nice, bound book. You can’t get lost in other things quite the same way.”

Baekhyun grimaces, trying not to let his cynicism overtake his face. “Well, one might find that getting lost in anything is hard in this day and age.”

“Philosophical conversations at the water cooler, amazing,” a deep voice cuts in. Park Chanyeol has somehow managed to materialize, as if out of thin air. He trips on his own feet and shatters all illusions of stealthiness.

“...And that’s my cue to leave…”, Jongdae says. He turns to look at Baekhyun. “Are we still on for drinks tonight Byun?” 

“Sounds good to me,” Chanyeol crows. He grins, revealing what seems like thousands of teeth.

Baekhyun nods, half in disbelief, half in resignation. He creeps back to his desk, all too eager to bury his head back into the accounts.

When Baekhyun breaks for lunch, it’s sunny outside, but Baekhyun’s eyesight clouds with the ethereal dimness of dealing with too many numbers and trying to love someone back all at once.

❀

It’s not that Baekhyun doesn’t love Jongin, it’s just that he’s not in love with him. He wakes up in the morning and feels a vague fondness, one that makes him want to brush his lips over the back of a hand, maybe the inside of a wrist. It’s a slight security that makes him feel content. But as much as Baekhyun wants to be able to drown in what he feels for Jongin, his love pools at his feet in small puddles of sweetness, too shallow to collect and use as a water source later on. He knows that eventually, it will evaporate and dry up. He wishes he could be Jongin’s oasis, but he knows that that, like many other aspects of Baekhyun’s life, is an impossibility. 

❀

Baekhyun meets Jongdae, Chanyeol, and one of Chanyeol’s latest boy toys for drinks at a smoky bar called Mix situated somewhere at the top of a hill in Itaewon. The boy toy has ridiculously clear skin and it makes Baekhyun feel bitter. Anybody who didn’t have to try sixteen different kinds of acne solution before finding the right match makes Baekhyun feel bitter, really. It seems like Baekhyun is bitter about everything in his life, lately. Numbers can only distance you from reality for so long.

After a few too many glasses of soju, Baekhyun is feeling giddy and restless. When he reaches into his pocket to text Jongin a selca he’ll almost definitely regret taking in the morning, he realizes that he’s left his phone in the office. “Fuck!”, he says, slurry and drunk-quiet. Clearly not as quiet as he would have liked, as baby face (also known as Lu Han, Baekhyun doesn’t care about irrelevant people, and Chanyeol goes through men about as quickly as Jongdae turns from a sweet-talking adonis into a socially incompetent potato whenever Liyin from the editing department gives him the time of day, so Baekhyun figures it’s probably not worth learning his name), asks him what’s wrong with shit-eating grin plastered across his face. 

Baekhyun manages to babble out something about his phone being left at the office, and turns to get out of his chair to go retrieve it. when he nearly falls over in the process, Jongdae decides that it’s time for them to call it a night. Baekhyun feels his body being tugged towards an unknown sort of light, but is too sleepy and too drunk to open his eyes. It isn't until he’s been shoved into a cab, crammed against the side while Jongdae piles all of their briefcases onto the other side of the backseat. 

Jongdae barks their destination to the driver and they set off on the long drive to Yeonnam-dong. Seoul looks blurry and strange through Baekhyun’s half-lidded eyes, neon smears every crevice of his being, and this, this, he thinks, this is what it feels like to live. He slips a clammy hand into Jongdae’s and thinks about how life is all about the small comforts. 

The next thing he knows, he’s home, and Jongdae is brushing his sweaty hair back out of his face with his warm hands. Baekhyun peers up into Jongdae’s face, bleary-eyed and wanting nothing more than the luxury of sleep, some kind of escape. He musters all of the motor control he can to shoot Jongdae a glare. Jongdae stares down at him sadly.

“You’re a mess, Byun.” Baekhyun doesn’t disagree. On the elevator ride back up to his apartment, Baekhyun realizes that he’s missed Jongin’s recital.

❀

Baekhyun longs to be consumed by Jongin in the way that he only manages to be when he watches him dance. He wants his heart to tug when the light catches Jongin's collarbones through the windows of their apartment when he's washing the dishes on Saturday mornings. He wants to have the same light in his eyes that Zitao has when he looks at Sehun. Jongin kisses him and he feels nothing.

❀

The worst part of waking up the next morning is not the hangover. Jongin is understanding. Baekhyun wants Jongin to yell at him, to push and pick at him until there’s nothing left but a hollow rib cage and a fear of falling. Instead, he gets lazy passivity, and Jongin makes him his favorite food for breakfast, as usual. Baekhyun feels sick and weak and when Jongin leaves the house to shoot a few hoops with Sehun and Zitao, Baekhyun sits and stares out at the cloudless sky and wishes there was something out there for him.

Baekhyun overhears Jongin talking on the phone with what sounds like Sehun based on the vocal quality, and things are normal. Baekhyun doesn’t understand why things are normal. He starts to wonder if maybe, the butterflies in Jongin’s stomach have also turned into wasps, hissing and buzzing and forcing any positive sentiment into their packed together little nests until a storm destroys them, blowing them away as if they were merely made of dust (if Jongin is a wasp, then Baekhyun must be a paper wasp, because every nest he’s every cultivated has dissolved and splintered apart far too easy.

❀

That night, as a form of apology, Baekhyun takes Jongin out to dinner at his favorite restaurant. It’s nothing too fancy, but they have the best fried chicken in all of Seoul. Jongin is currently seated across from him at table with a napkin tied around his neck like a bib to keep the sauce from staining his already-stained shirt. Baekhyun feels a stab of affection, then. As he looks across the table at Jongin, face stained with barbeque sauce, he realizes something. He tries as hard as he can to blot it out. 

“Wipe your face Jongin, you look like an ad for baby food, and not the top-selling kind,” Baekhyun says, smiling wanly, trying to provoke some kind of conversation.

“Yes daddy,” Jongin says, wriggling his eyebrows.

“Please don’t.” Baekhyun shudders. “Nobody actually wants to be reminded of their father when they’re doing the do.”

“No problem dad.” Jongin sticks his tongue out.

Baekhyun grimaces. “Jongin, stop. You’re acting like a child.”

“And you’re acting like my father, further emphasizing my point.” Jongin isn’t grinning anymore.

“What are you even talking about, Jongin?” Baekhyun claps his hands together in his lap, wringing them together nervously. “Is this about the recital?” 

“I’ve already told you that I don’t care about the recital, but what I do care about is that we never seem to have any fun anymore, Baek.” Jongin looks tired, so tired. Baekhyun reckons it’s about as tired as he feels on a daily basis.

“Jongin, I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.” The dull grey color that clouds every silver lining Baekhyun has seen since high school begs to differ. 

“You say that I’m acting childish, but I think you’ve just stopped knowing how to enjoy anything you do.” Jongin sits, stony-faced and exhausted, and stares straight through every artificial hive Baekhyun has put in place to protect himself from being stung.

“I don’t think we should be talking about this right now.” Baekhyun’s nails are digging deep craters into the palms of his hands. Even after he lets go, they stay, little indentations filled with self-loathing and words that Baekhyun is not honest enough to say.

They get into Baekhyun’s cheap car and ride home. The silence is tangible, sticks to Baekhyun and then oozes gradually down his skin like a mixture of the cheap soju they drank at dinner and how Baekhyun feels when he sees the diving numbers of the accounts each day at work.

❀

Sunrise comes and cloaks their bedroom in scarlet. Baekhyun jolts awake as if he’s been punched. He hears the sound of a suitcase being zipped up. Jongin looks at him, cold and disjointed.

“I think it’s better for both of us if I stay with my parents for a while.”

He walks out of the room and leaves the apartment without a word. The sound of the door slamming shut is the most comforting sound Baekhyun has heard in years.

❀  
He gets up and goes to work, and small strands of anger coil inside of him like infant snakes. Rattlesnakes, maybe. He can almost hear the shaking of a threatened tail when he approaches his office.

Baekhyun studied numbers because numbers are definites, even when changing, still changing in a logical way. These are things that Baekhyun did not necessarily have, growing up. Today, however, he finds that the numbers are not calming him down. 

The thing is, he isn’t even angry at Jongin. He’s angry that he doesn’t care about the situation as much as he feels he should. Baekhyun sits in his cubicle and stares at the numbers he’s responsible for and tries to calm the shaking in his hands.

As his lunch break rolls around, Baekhyun has managed to calm himself down considerably. As Jongdae approaches his desk, however, his heart rate skyrockets in the same way he wishes the company’s stock would. His face colors as he remembers flashes of Friday Night. The dim lights of a bar, a flash of a smile, warm hands drenched in neon and cut inverse. Baekhyun can feel himself getting attached, and he doesn’t like it. 

“Afternoon, Byun. Care to join me for lunch?” Jongdae leans on the edge of Baekhyun’s cubicle with a wry grin on his face. 

“I think I’ll pass,” Baekhyun says, trying not to sneer and burst into an apology all at once.

“Are you sure? We’re having meat! And Lu Han is paying!” 

“Damn, my two vices. I guess I wouldn’t mind tagging along.” Baekhyun really likes meat, and, after the other night especially, really wants to stick it to Chanyeol’s stupid little boy toy. 

“Great!” Jongdae’s eyes have started to wander visibly. Baekhyun sees Liyin from editing, and understands immediately.

“It’s hotter than usual in here today, you should bring her a cup of water or something.” Baekhyun winks at Jongdae conspiratorially. 

Jongdae snaps to attention at once. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“She’d like you, Jongdae. Everyone likes you, you’re sweet.” Baekhyun remembers warm hands on his back, leading Baekhyun up to his apartment as he struggles not to stumble and fall, surely bringing Jongdae down with him.

“Do my ears deceive me? Is that a compliment I heard just now?” Jongdae smiles a small smile.

“Don’t let it go to your head, Kim.”

As they head off for lunch together, Baekhyun can feel snakes uncoiling. Begrudgingly, he admits that maybe, just maybe, he and Kim Jongdae are friends.

❀

Jongin calls him three nights later. His voice sounds small and thin and scared. Baekhyun wishes that it made him feel something, but it doesn’t.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

They sit there like that for awhile, just listening to the sound of each other’s breathing. Jongin’s is ragged and Baekhyun’s is not, and that says more than it should.

❀

Jongin comes back a week later, and decides that it’s time for them to stop pretending that nothing is wrong. They go out to dinner and it is sufficiently awkward. They sit across from each other at the table and Baekhyun wishes that some kind of being would come and swallow all their silences whole.

Jongin breaks the silence with a clear of his throat. 

“First off, I’m sorry for leaving so abruptly.” Jongin runs his hands through his hair. “But, when I was at my parents’ place, it really gave me some time to reflect on things.”

Baekhyun hums in acknowledgement, giving Jongin a small nod to let him know that he has nothing to add.

“I feel like lately, we’ve been going in different directions.” Jongin, smiles, tight-lipped. 

Baekhyun should feel like throwing up. He should be angry. He should want to break things or curse. He looks up at Jongin and smiles.

“I think you’re right, Jongin, and I’m sorry.” He doesn’t have to look up at Jongin to know that he’s already crying. “I wake up in the morning and want so badly to be excited about things, but instead I feel like I’m being pulled apart.” He curls into himself. “And I love you and I’m sorry. And that’s exactly why I feel like we shouldn’t do this anymore.”

Jongin looks cracked in half and stepped on. Baekhyun leans across the table to touch his shoulder. Jongin pushes his hand away in what’s probably the most violent thing Baekhyun has ever seen him do that’s not part of a performance.

“And I love you, but sometimes I don't think you know how to love anybody, Baekhyun. Not even yourself." Jongin gets up and turns to leave. “I’ll have my stuff out of the apartment by Monday. Do me a favor and find somewhere else to stay for the night.”

❀

It’s a long walk to Jongdae’s house, but Baekhyun paid for dinner and doesn’t have enough left for a cab. A light rain has descended on Seoul, and it simultaneously soaks Baekhyun and chills him to the bone. He presses the button for what he thinks is Jongdae’s place and is shivering so fiercely that he can barely bite out a reply when Jongdae answers the call in a sleepy-sounding voice and buzzes him up.

Jongdae opens the door to his apartment in nothing but a wrecked-looking Kim Dongryul t-shirt and some boxers. 

“Hey man, it’s like three-thirty! What are you doing here?” He squints at Baekhyun, and Baekhyun realizes that he probably doesn’t have his contacts in. Realization suddenly washes over his face. “Are you crying, or are my eyes failing me once again.”

“Your eyes must be failing you, old man.” Baekhyun’s voice sounds shaky at best, even to him.

Jongdae walks off wordlessly and returns with a hideous green jacket, draping it around his shoulders and dragging Baekhyun into the house.  
“I’m not going to make you talk about it tonight, but tomorrow, I’m going to need an explanation for why you showed up at my door like a literal stray puppy.” Jongdae fixes Baekhyun with a serious stare.

Baekhyun chokes out a shaky thank you.

“Jongdae, who’s here?,” a sleepy voice croons from somewhere in the depths of Jongdae’s apartment in accented Korean. Baekhyun manages a choppy laugh.

“Is that who I think it is Jongdae? I guess you brought her that water after all.” Jongdae colors visibly and glares at Baekhyun before dashing back into the room where the voice came from. The bedroom, Baekhyun thinks with a smirk.

His nestles himself into Jongdae’s uncomfortable couch and slowly falls into sleep. His last thought before it pulls him under completely is not of Jongin.

❀

Baekhyun arrives at his apartment on Monday morning with trepidation running through his veins.

He’s met with a half-empty apartment and a note.

_Dear Baekhyun, I hope you can fix yourself. J_

❀

It’s nine months later and Baekhyun is attending a recital for one most prestigious ballet companies in South Korea.

He’s accompanied by Jongdae and Liyin, who are now an official item, and Chanyeol and Lu Han, who unfortunately, ended up lasting longer than all of Chanyeol’s previous ‘relationships’ combined.

Ballet still makes him feel sick to his stomach, but he’s dressed nicely and has combed his hair for once. 

The lights come up and Jongin takes the stage. Baekhyun feels something. After the show, he goes to visit Jongin’s dressing room to congratulate him. His fear is all-consuming and exhilarating all at once. He looks up at the numbers hanging over Jongin’s door to calm himself down. This is Baekhyun trying to pull the pieces of himself that have scattered all around Seoul as he’s grown up back together. This is an accumulation of wanting he’s made himself capable of gaining over the past nine months. This is putting himself out there and living to tell the tale regardless of the result. This is Byun Baekhyun and how he half-fixed himself and learned to live with the other half in nine months.

He steels himself, raises a closed fist to the door, and knocks twice.

❀

It ends with a fall. It ends with a familiar collision of lips and teeth one night after Jongin's first recital with a major company. It ends because Baekhyun is lonely but for different reasons than before, and Jongin is always warm, so warm. It ends with a fall, and Baekhyun sometimes likes to think that it started with one too.


End file.
